Lenders expect that with mortgage interest rates at historic lows, with home prices declining and many first-time homebuyers eligible for up to an $8,000 tax credit, they will be kept busy with applications for home loans this spring.

You’re invited to an afternoon tea party — and not the raised-pinkie, one-lump-or-two variety, either.Try a Boston Harbor, sneak over the bow, throw-stuff-in-the water populist protest against the federal government.Today in Kansas City, and 2,000 other communities large and small across America, hundreds of thousands of people are expected to gather t…